Communist societies are examples of trying to impose morality at the point of a gun. We have had various theocracies as well.
They all fail.
The cure? Let individuals fail. It is how they learn.
BTW the biggest vector for anti-social behavior in America is child abuse. I'm still waiting for the socon campaign against child abuse. Any day now. To be sure.
Let me be clearer. There is a genetic component to this. About 80% of abused kids just get over it. Twenty percent hold grudges. And it is genetic. Child rearing styles need to be different for the genetically susceptible. And since at this time we don't know which is which - then non-abusive styles should be used for all children. And I'm not interested in a government imposition. I'm looking for a cultural change.
And consider this. With 20% of the population genetically susceptible only about half that number receive enough trauma to cause a problem. Which says something on the order of 50% in America have bad parenting styles. (for various reasons the number is probably less - in any case I'd say the minimum was 30%.)
Kind of a big problem that no one notices. It is easier to discuss the details of gay sex than to come to terms with bad parenting. We have some really strange taboos in America.
Dimwitted Social Conservatives
Bad parenting is the result of the erosion of societal standards in behavior. There is no longer social stigma for making a mess of your life or that of your children. Uncle Sugar pays for every excessive indulgence. Take away consequences and you take away self control.MSimon wrote:Communist societies are examples of trying to impose morality at the point of a gun. We have had various theocracies as well.
They all fail.
The cure? Let individuals fail. It is how they learn.
BTW the biggest vector for anti-social behavior in America is child abuse. I'm still waiting for the socon campaign against child abuse. Any day now. To be sure.
Let me be clearer. There is a genetic component to this. About 80% of abused kids just get over it. Twenty percent hold grudges. And it is genetic. Child rearing styles need to be different for the genetically susceptible. And since at this time we don't know which is which - then non-abusive styles should be used for all children. And I'm not interested in a government imposition. I'm looking for a cultural change.
And consider this. With 20% of the population genetically susceptible only about half that number receive enough trauma to cause a problem. Which says something on the order of 50% in America have bad parenting styles. (for various reasons the number is probably less - in any case I'd say the minimum was 30%.)
Kind of a big problem that no one notices. It is easier to discuss the details of gay sex than to come to terms with bad parenting. We have some really strange taboos in America.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —
— Lord Melbourne —
Yes, yes, yes, yes!Communist societies are examples of trying to impose morality at the point of a gun. We have had various theocracies as well.
They all fail.
The cure? Let individuals fail. It is how they learn.
BTW the biggest vector for anti-social behavior in America is child abuse. I'm still waiting for the socon campaign against child abuse. Any day now. To be sure.
Let me be clearer. There is a genetic component to this.
D,
We still have too many "spare the rod spoil the child" folks in this country. Mostly religious conservatives. And they take it to mean that if you don't beat your kids when they are in error you will raise bad kids.
But the rod of correction refers to sheep. And if you beat sheep they run away. You must correct gently. Very gently.
You hear so often "I was beat as a child and it helped". Which is true for 80%. It is the other 20% you have to watch out for.
If we have lost our way it is because conservatives have done such a poor job of attracting adherents. They are smart about many things and stupid about a few. And instead of accepting that the stupidity is a bug they tout it as a feature. From time to time people notice.
My understanding of Jesus is that he opposed government solutions to social problems. And yet "conservatives", like socialists, can't imagine using any other tool. It makes their braying about "small government" look like hypocrisy. Which it is.
=======
Most of our policy mistakes are caused by doing things that work well for 80% and are an absolute disaster for 20%. Only markets have even a chance at making 99% happy.
Remember that when you choose a government solution you only have to please 51%. Unfortunately the other 49% become enemies to varying degrees and they will be working to change the minds of 2% in order to change policy. Round and round.
We still have too many "spare the rod spoil the child" folks in this country. Mostly religious conservatives. And they take it to mean that if you don't beat your kids when they are in error you will raise bad kids.
But the rod of correction refers to sheep. And if you beat sheep they run away. You must correct gently. Very gently.
You hear so often "I was beat as a child and it helped". Which is true for 80%. It is the other 20% you have to watch out for.
If we have lost our way it is because conservatives have done such a poor job of attracting adherents. They are smart about many things and stupid about a few. And instead of accepting that the stupidity is a bug they tout it as a feature. From time to time people notice.
My understanding of Jesus is that he opposed government solutions to social problems. And yet "conservatives", like socialists, can't imagine using any other tool. It makes their braying about "small government" look like hypocrisy. Which it is.
=======
Most of our policy mistakes are caused by doing things that work well for 80% and are an absolute disaster for 20%. Only markets have even a chance at making 99% happy.
Remember that when you choose a government solution you only have to please 51%. Unfortunately the other 49% become enemies to varying degrees and they will be working to change the minds of 2% in order to change policy. Round and round.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
MSimon wrote:D,
We still have too many "spare the rod spoil the child" folks in this country. Mostly religious conservatives. And they take it to mean that if you don't beat your kids when they are in error you will raise bad kids.
But the rod of correction refers to sheep. And if you beat sheep they run away. You must correct gently. Very gently.
You hear so often "I was beat as a child and it helped". Which is true for 80%. It is the other 20% you have to watch out for.
If we have lost our way it is because conservatives have done such a poor job of attracting adherents. They are smart about many things and stupid about a few. And instead of accepting that the stupidity is a bug they tout it as a feature. From time to time people notice.
That is a fallacy of false choice. The unmentioned alternative is that the system dynamics have altered. I argue that prosperity breeds liberalism, Liberalism breeds foolishness, and foolishness breeds poverty. I've mentioned the Tytler cycle before.
You are just blaming the negative feedback system (social stigma) for existing when the problem is that it is too feeble.
MSimon wrote: My understanding of Jesus is that he opposed government solutions to social problems. And yet "conservatives", like socialists, can't imagine using any other tool. It makes their braying about "small government" look like hypocrisy. Which it is. .
And my response is as always: There are jobs that must be done, and only government can do them. Law Enforcement is a job that ONLY the government should do. Defense is as well.
MSimon wrote:
Most of our policy mistakes are caused by doing things that work well for 80% and are an absolute disaster for 20%. Only markets have even a chance at making 99% happy.
Remember that when you choose a government solution you only have to please 51%. Unfortunately the other 49% become enemies to varying degrees and they will be working to change the minds of 2% in order to change policy. Round and round.
Your numbers are off. Invariably 20+ percent of that 49 remainder is apathetic and doesn't really care one way or the other. The hard core enemies usually hover from 10% - 30%.
Anyway, I am no advocate of Democracy. I don't believe 51% of the voters ought to be able to tamper with fundamental rights.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —
— Lord Melbourne —
Well yes. Law Enforcement. Until they start running pogroms for you. Then they lose moral authority. And the people advocating those pogroms also lose their moral authority. Perhaps you failed to notice the effect of advocacy of Alcohol Prohibition on the stature of the churches. Instead of healing the afflicted some churches (staunch Christians to be sure) declared war on them. Many churches are prone to the same bad habits today. With similar results.
May I repeat?
Making war on 5% to 10% of the population because of matters of taste hardly seems civilized to me. But then again I'm not all that familiar with Christian Civilization.
Let me add that there is nothing like a major prohibition regime for breaking down the rule of law. All law. Moral, Spiritual, Criminal. It is plain as American history 1920 to 1933. Perhaps you never studied it. Pity. Those condemned to history are bound to repeat it.
The religious have done more to destroy their moral authority than all of their enemies combined (including prosperity) have done.
May I repeat?
Making war on 5% to 10% of the population because of matters of taste hardly seems civilized to me. But then again I'm not all that familiar with Christian Civilization.
Let me add that there is nothing like a major prohibition regime for breaking down the rule of law. All law. Moral, Spiritual, Criminal. It is plain as American history 1920 to 1933. Perhaps you never studied it. Pity. Those condemned to history are bound to repeat it.
The religious have done more to destroy their moral authority than all of their enemies combined (including prosperity) have done.
“Political tags–such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth–are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.” – Robert A. Heinlein
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
I had a really good discussion with my dad yesterday about the difference between ethics and morale.
Morale is what the society thinks is good or bad. Ethics is what the individual thinks is good or bad.
Morale is usually defined by the governing entity and as we all know this has changed over time and is not often what we would today consider good. E.g. the generally accepted morale during the nazi times was that killing mentally ill or doing cruel experiments on them was fine.
Then you have the ethics of someone I knew, who would have nothing to do with that and was disgusted by it and even told so to his superiors. Oddly enough, he never had any repercussions from this, but others did. This probably also depended on the personal ethics of whoever judged this person higher up the ranks.
I am often apalled how in todays society morale is put over ethics. How morale is forced on people, sometimes with a brutality and often mindlessly.
E.g. there is a quite famous childrens book, called Der Struwwelpeter.
It was a book written in 1845 by a father for his children, with sometimes quite cruel stories in it, but always meant as to teach his children something.
In todays political environment it has faced harsh critizism.
One story has been removed completely too:
3 boys make fun a of an african man. As a punishment santa claus puts them into a barrel full of black ink, coloring them black as well.
Personally, I find this story pretty neat (and ahead of its time, considering that it was written in 1845). They are being intolerant and are punished for that. Yet in todays version this part has been removed completely. It is considered politically incorrect. Why? Because there is an african person in it? It seems totally counter productive and counter intuitive to me and my personal ethics.
Similarily many stories about decisions by judges in the US seem to me that the judges are speaking the law (aka morale), but not justice (aka ethics). Somewhere our society lost this and I consider this quite a dangerous development. Political correctness and so called morale (defined by politics) are above ethics and we teach our children that this is OK?
Morale is what the society thinks is good or bad. Ethics is what the individual thinks is good or bad.
Morale is usually defined by the governing entity and as we all know this has changed over time and is not often what we would today consider good. E.g. the generally accepted morale during the nazi times was that killing mentally ill or doing cruel experiments on them was fine.
Then you have the ethics of someone I knew, who would have nothing to do with that and was disgusted by it and even told so to his superiors. Oddly enough, he never had any repercussions from this, but others did. This probably also depended on the personal ethics of whoever judged this person higher up the ranks.
I am often apalled how in todays society morale is put over ethics. How morale is forced on people, sometimes with a brutality and often mindlessly.
E.g. there is a quite famous childrens book, called Der Struwwelpeter.
It was a book written in 1845 by a father for his children, with sometimes quite cruel stories in it, but always meant as to teach his children something.
In todays political environment it has faced harsh critizism.
One story has been removed completely too:
3 boys make fun a of an african man. As a punishment santa claus puts them into a barrel full of black ink, coloring them black as well.
Personally, I find this story pretty neat (and ahead of its time, considering that it was written in 1845). They are being intolerant and are punished for that. Yet in todays version this part has been removed completely. It is considered politically incorrect. Why? Because there is an african person in it? It seems totally counter productive and counter intuitive to me and my personal ethics.
Similarily many stories about decisions by judges in the US seem to me that the judges are speaking the law (aka morale), but not justice (aka ethics). Somewhere our society lost this and I consider this quite a dangerous development. Political correctness and so called morale (defined by politics) are above ethics and we teach our children that this is OK?
Seems you need to have the discussion again.Skipjack wrote:I had a really good discussion with my dad yesterday about the difference between ethics and morale.
Morale is what the society thinks is good or bad. Ethics is what the individual thinks is good or bad.
Morale is how good you feel about things.
Morality is about right and wrong.
Ethics is about good and bad.
Law is what governments create to TRY to codify morality and ethics. Such efforts frequently fail miserably because, as you and your father have just demonstyrated, most folks don't know the difference between morality and ethics!!
I guess that that is a matter of language barrier.Morale is how good you feel about things.
Morality is about right and wrong.
No, morality is what the society you live in says is right or wrong.Morality is about right and wrong.
Ethics is about good and bad.
See my nazi- example earlier.
As I said earlier, law does not always reflect ethics as much, as it does morality.Law is what governments create to TRY to codify morality and ethics.
No, morality is purely about right and wrong.Skipjack wrote:No, morality is what the current society says is right or wrong.Morality is about right and wrong.
Ethics is about good and bad.
See my nazi- example earlier.
Societies fail because they don't understand what is right and what is wrong. The closer a society is to understanding the true nature of right and wrong, i.e., the more moral the society is, the more free and more productive the society is.
Your Nazi example is of a society the utterly failed to understand right and wrong and failed in less than a couple decades. So much for the 1000 year Reich.
Three Laws of Morality.
1. Sapient beings have the RIGHT to voluntary action.
2. You can't do GOOD by doing WRONG.
3. Like all toxic substances, government is subject to the J-Curve.
For those less mature amongst the audiance, let me provide the 1st law in its converse form:
1. It is WRONG to involve another sapient being in an action involuntarily.